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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
This is a well done post, there needs to be some benefit to action combat and really this just displayed slightly moveable tab targeting and I'm disappointed in it. Especially since this game is supposed to be very heavy PvP oriented which is competitive gameplay and this is going to take away from it unless they change it.
- Unique abilities to the class and that a player can enjoy and show off, Impact, Power reflected in character stance and movement, audio queues that sound good, attack FX
When it comes to Ranger archetype fantasy, what are you wanting to see and not wanting to see?
- Would love to see more movement skills making it easier to dodge and move away from enemies for better shots at letting your arrows fly. Would love to see different types of projectiles like elemental, maybe some spectral or some sort of magical attacks from the bow, Would love to see some melee close combat skills when you get to close which would be applied to your secondary sword, dagger weapons.
- adding fire, ice, bleed, or poison to arrow attacks
- I loved seeing the options of tab and action combat even though i'm more of a tab target player
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the basic range weapon attacks and the Ranger archetype?
- I'm excited what we saw with the "Airstrike" attack skill which makes the ranger a more fun class to play. It gives me Legolas vibes which is awesome!
- I Loved seeing the elf ears peek through the hood this should also be applied to Horns as well.
- I was also concerned about the name plates.They were very hard to read especially the red and black outlined font over the enemies.
- was excited to see that obstacles like trees can block an arrow this will allow for some cool unique and challenging gameplay and tactics by using the environment as a shield. This should also be true for enemies trying to hit you but you stand behind a tree to not get hit by their projectiles.
ONE MORE POINT: A healer is healing players and the enemy fires their arrows at the healer and the tank does and instant altered Charge attack instantly teleporting them in front of the healer taking the the arrow and blocking all damage for the healer. The hunter repositions with airstrike leaping into the air over the tank and healer trying to get behind them. the healer heals the tank. the ranger tries to quickly move around them in a 360 trying to get the best shot. This makes for a dynamic battle field and its ever moving and ever changing. not some boring stand still spam fest.
This above example why i also think your should give the Ranger an ability called "360 Unload" where they burst run around their selected target and unload a plethora of arrows towards the target allowing a small open window of hopefully hitting the target when this deeply dynamic battle happens giving the ranger an upper hand for a short amount of time.
I would also like to see more AOE arrow attacks maybe with an incendiary explosion AOE attack for example.
Can't wait to play Ranger! Great Job Intrepid!
member of Gray Sentinels
The archer showcase today was not what I was expecting. The tab target takes the skill portion away and you end up relying on chance rather than using Invincibility-frames. It made the PVE seem boring and nowhere near as rewarding, as real action combat. The action combat that was displayed was not TRUE action combat as you just have to aim in the general direction and your arrow will still hit regardless if you are aiming directly at the target or not. That just takes away all the potential skill aspect from an MMO and makes it boring as you don’t actually have to aim, which does take away from the satisfaction of landing shots on enemies.
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse had a much better combat system and I actually really enjoyed watching others play it because it looked so much more immersive and engaging. Being able to also zoom into a more first person POV with the bow in APOC was very cool and it just made the beauty of the game that much better as it showed a closer look to the beautiful graphics. The current gameplay as of today was very zoomed out and it wasn’t as immersive and it didn’t give the same immersion as APOC had. When APOC was out I was super hyped for this gameplay in an MMO! But seeing the current tab target and assisted action combat…was just underwhelming sadly.
I understand there is a group of people who do like tab target and more of an assisted action combat, but times are changing and the new generations are going towards TRUE action combat as it makes gameplay much more enjoyable to watch. In TRUE action combat all the attacks that are being performed are skill based and not just assisted tab targeting where it will always lock attacks onto the enemy. If this game went back to the combat of APOC, as well as with how big of a map and content you guys have planned, this game will be a first of its kind. But as of right now truthfully, it just is a very beautiful game even at this stage of the game development, with a lot of content planned, but with the current combat…it just won’t be anywhere near what it could be if the gameplay went back to what was being shown during APOC.
Overall I will still keep myself updated with this game and will continue to support it but the way the combat has shifted to tab target and assisted action combat is just saddening compared to what it was going towards. If anyone wants to answer a question: what is more satisfying? Seeing someone zoom in to a more first person POV and landing an amazing sniper shot on an unsuspecting enemy with actual aim needed or just seeing someone hover their mouse over a target and clicking a button knowing it will always auto lock-on hitting the target with a lack of skill required?
Here is an example of what archer was going towards in Ashes of Creation Start watching video at 5:00
The air strike animation looked great, I'm really looking forward to see what other cool animations you guys made.
If I were to point at something I didn't like, it would be the fact that some skills will require a target event if you're in action mode, it is understandable for certain skills like a resurrection or a buff or even air strike, but being in action mode and having to hard or soft-lock a target to be able to use certain skills diminish the advantage of point-blank shooting that action mode has in exchange for the inherent risk of missing the shot, but most importantly, it is very annoying to try to use or ready a skill for it to not activate because the moment you did it you were not looking at the target. What I want to say with this is, look very carefully at which skills absolutely require a target to be used or readied, so it won't break the gameplay loop with an unexpected lack of responsiveness.
Here is what I really loved about it:
-The fluidity of movement and combat together (the running, dodging, jumping and being able to fire and what looks like you will really feel in control)
-Both tab and action combat styles. One thing I think AoC should consider and another benefit of having the ability to fire without a tabbed target is that you could potentially put things in the game that you need to manually fire at. Lets say your in a dungeon and there's this lever or something in the corner of the room. You have your ranged shoot it with the bow and bam a secret room opens up or the environment allows for a bridge to be made so you can continue forward or something like that. There's probably so much more you could do here.
-The abilities were really good, I know they were the basic attacks mostly but more will come. I did love the air attack one! I hope to see more of this in the game! Makes it look so fun to play!!
-The sounds and what seemed like the responsiveness and weight/impact of the attacks seemed really good. Hard to say without playing but from what I could tell it was awesome.
-The two bows short and long was outstanding also. I feel this was perfect in design in how they are different.
-Everything from the environment, the fog effects, the birds, the weather/wind, was all great! I absolutely love where this game is going.
I do hope to see AoC put things like bleeds, poisons, slows, elements to attacks, traps, AOE's, enemy pushbacks and abilities like the air attack that can put some distance between you and the enemy. I also want to see escape abilities, stealth's or other abilities that allow to disengage from the combat or cool off aggro if you find you bit off more than you can chew PVE or PVP.
Good lord I can't wait to play this game. I don't normally even play ranged, after seeing this though I think I'm going to have to play one!
Overall YES the direction here is the right one. I honestly can't see anything I did not like about it.
This is a great start! I think that giving the players the choice between tab and action is huge and having the fluidity of movement during combat, and the weapon styles (long and short bow) are probably the three really key parts here to begin with that I seen. The rest will come with refinement.
Please keep up what you guys are doing and thank you for being so connected with the community. I have a lot of faith in you guys having been watching for a couple years now the progress your making.
Would you care to elaborate more on why you feel it was a 4/10?
-Making short and longbow have different playstyles is a great idea.
-The targeting, both tab and action looks great, but it's hard to say without first hand experience.
-The shortbow combat style looks perfect to me, very mobile, medium/close ranged, fast shots and bursty.
-The sounds of both weapons are great.
-The airstrike skill looks very nice, reminds me of some skills of bdo's ranger pre-awakening weapon.
-The tab target part of the longbow combat seems very nice too, having less mobility and even being rooted in place seems like the correct idea. The draw-hold-loose motion holding the button looks and seems to feel great too, really impactful. Charging your skills in a longbow for full damage seems just right.
-Having your selected target detached from your crosshair seems like an excellent idea in action combat mode.
Now, some doubts:
-Can arrows be dodged? Please don't make everything "homing arrows" that follow the target and always hit as long as you had your mouse over the character hitbox when you clicked, TESO did this and it felt horrible. Some skill that locks on a target and follows? Sure. But everything... Please no. I ask because the water attack spells from the shaman tracked their target.
Intercepting and blocking them as Steven said is great specialy for tanks, but not being able to dodge them seems a little meh.
-The action combat aspect of the longbow looked very underused in the demo. Please create some skills that make us aim and make them worth the effort. Snipe could be a perfect example, same with something like a penetrating shot, strong ccs or templated attacks.
-What is the maximum range of the longbow? All the shots shown in the demo are extremely close range. At least the longbows should have a very, very long range. (Let us really snipe the targets pretty please?)
-What is the max damage estimate of a longbow skill? Very related to the previous question. The longbow playstyle should allow slow and risky but hard hitting attacks from extreme distances. Hard to setup, hard to hit but very effective if you pull it off. A good longbowman should melt lightly armored enemies from very long distances (I'm likely playing a wizard or summoner so raining in my parade here, but it just seems right) and probably anyone being focused by 2 or 3 well coordinated archers should just explode.
With all its problems New world managed to create an excellent longbow experience, believe it or not some "fps" elements fit perfectly fine in an mmo now that technology allow it. Yes, the skill ceiling is higher, but it's fun as hell and allows some very good players to really shine, we have tab target for those that don't like the challenge.
Also:
-The Environment, the minos and their lizardogs are amazing.
- I can't stress enough the quality of the sound effects in these last videos, superb work.
Obviously things are work in progress, I'm aware, but it's still feedback based on what's available now...
Fluid animations and the accommodating impactful sounds.
Animations looked fine, I suppose, but sound needs work in the case of long bow sounds. What I see on the screen doesn't exactly match with the sounds I feel like it should make. When a minotaur was hit, rather than an arrow hitting flesh it sounded more like a wooden mark was hit instead which made it feel like fighting an inanimate object throughout. Perhaps flesh is not good either, needs to pack more punch. Some of the killing shots had no impact sound effect at all, which felt very odd. Every arrow, no matter the distance traveled or whatever (influence of atmospheric conditions), sounded more or less exactly the same (monotone). The crit sound was just a slightly louder arrow hitting wooden mark with sometimes tambourine(?) in the mix. A charged attack impact sound was exactly the same as a normal attack impact sound, not nice.
Short bow sounds get lost and mixed in the fast pace, so there the little details don't stand out as much.
I know the sounds weren't the focus of this showcase, but I'm still pointing it out. That's how important sounds are to me.
I want to see either big crits or fast pace, but I also want to feel every shot through impactful sounds at the very least.
Charged attacks especially should make for juicy crits. And if a charged attack didn't crit, it should still, perhaps, sound a tiny, tiny bit (not disproportionally so) juicier than a normal basic attack. If it sounds like too much or too different then it hinders the fluidity/flow of things, feeling off again on the other end of the spectrum.
Short bow experience felt more right and satisfying in comparison to long bow just because the sound department was lacking overall.
New World basic attacks in action combat feel rewarding, but that's about it. Compared to melee combat the action combat bow mechanics felt far inferior imo.
Sounds were lackluster in the case of long bow showcase, as I mentioned earlier.
I like the action combat soft lock with the indicator... it seems to solve so many problems plaguing the bow mechanics in pure action combat games where you either land every shot or become irrelevant while a melee just has to press a button to land the hits with 100% accuracy dealing just as much if not more damage. Positioning and all that is the same for both classes, only bow class has extra steps imbedded to it. Melee even gets gap-closer abilities, so the range advantage is null in most cases.
The pace of short bow auto-attacks felt off. I prefer consistency throughout. A pause in the middle of just firing feels off, like you instantly start to question if you got stunned or whatnot, every time, when in a fight. Takes away a tiny bit of control over the character. I personally don't like inconsistency there... eww.
They did quote and state they agreed with my post whole heartedly, so hopefully that'll shed some light if he doesn't respond.
As for the ammo, I really like that as standard no ammo is used. That's why I never played with the musket or bow in New World and kept any ranged interests to stuff that used mana as it regenerates. I did like what Steven mentioned about getting a quiver of 'buff ammunition' (I forget what he called it) so that once equipped your next X attacks (X = number of arrows in the quiver) would get a bonus. Your could make these arrows do extra damage or apply different effects on the target such as slows. It's similar to what I would expect from a Rogue being able to have a 'salve bottle' equipped so the next X attacks for them (X = number of salve bottle uses) would do different types of poison effects.
I obviously understand Ashes is meant to be a hybrid combat system, and was fully expecting something along the lines of 50% tab spells and 50% action spells, but the basic attacks seem to be basically just tab, even when Steven entered "action mode" with the bow the spells locked on to the targets and honed in rather than missing, for example here when Steven purposefully aims above the monster yet the spell still hones in.
I just hope that full action use of the bows basic attacks can be incentivised. Simply spamming Q while tab locked on just isn't fun, nor does it feel rewarding compared to landing shot after shot with action.
The best middle ground and the true hybrid way to do it would be to have ranged basic attacks be mandatory "soft lock action" like was shown in the stream. You have to aim a bit, but you get leeway and your arrows will hone in if the reticle is close enough to the target. That way it's not full action and not full tab, a true hybrid
The animations, art, and sound were great. Loved the look of the Air Strike move.
I liked the Aerial Assault ability. Pretty slick. I don't plan on playing as a ranger but most I would think that do would want the flexibility to flip backwards as a retreat while still doing output. Maybe give it directional flexibility instead of character facing. Could be sick if the camera zoomed in and actually did an inverted flip along with your character. Too much motion sickness?
The strafing while attacking at range looks pretty good. Maybe a penalty for moving, like a reduction in power, etc.
The green swirl effect I could do without. Its too large and unnecessary. It doesn't convey what it does with the animation. That could be 100 different buffs. I'd prefer to see the held weapon (bow) glow to show the power up/charge mechanic it performs.
The high pitch whistling of one of the specific attacks is grating and would make me mute all sound effects in game if playing with a bow in my party. I'd alter that sound to be more silent with a louder thud of impact. This would also play into the silent stealthy ranger playstyle rather than announce your presence with the loud whistling shriek.
Alternatively could provide options to mute certain weapons but that seems tedious. I like pleasant audio sounds, maybe that comes from the Zelda player in me growing up idk. Anything grating from the player side I would smooth out as they are going to be highly repeated in game play and start to rub on the player over time.
The fire rate seemed very fast with only a few abilities. For pvp this is concerning.
After logging a lot of play time in New World and playing older games with jump styled combat its a major red flag for me seeing so much somersaults and space bar jumps woven into combat. I'm actually more against jump combat with space bar being woven inbetween abilities as I hate the look and feel of that combat style. Please do not go the way of attack, jump, ability, jump, ability 2, dodge roll.
New World's combat is abysmal because of the infinite kiting. Please minimize how often players can jump in combat and make it so that there is no benefit to avoiding melee attacks or abilities to it. If space bar hopping is the combat meta in pvp its going to be a major turn off for me.
Is jumping and dodge rolling as shown in this video going to help players avoid damage? When we played I only remember being able to roll away once at a low frequency, that was fine.
I want to see glass cannon ranged classes not be able to kite infinitely and have actual tradeoffs with lower mobility for their ranged advantage, or have to get close enough to do their damage that they risk getting locked down.
Getting a bit worried with how much mobility is shown in the demo's. Mage warping infinitely and now the jumping, rolling, aerial assault of bows. Idk some of it I enjoy a lot but I hope it's balanced out and fights aren't infinite kite fests.
One could definitely hope. But when a high damage snipe ability is tab target, it raises alarms for action players. Along with the exploitable nature of the current system for tab, makes me worry. Don't get me wrong, I have played both tab and action, have loved both. But there are some red flags with this factor alone, which is sad panda =*(. But considering this is an alpha, and they are asking for advice, this be precisely the forum/discussion to air everything out.
Hello Vaknar! I'm happy to see you wanted to know why I rated it 4/10. Normally I'd write a review as long as Kaelin's, but I was rather lazy. Thankfully he explained it all in detail in his post. To clarify tho, for tab targeting standards, the ranged basic attacks were at least 9/10 (as they felt impactful and looked good with excellent sound feedback). The environment and all the other visual bits were great, as always, so I didn't mention those (I got used to the quality over four years). For hybrid/action standards tho, I had to rate it 4/10 (see, almost half points for tab but no true action, hence 0 points). The most distasteful thing about this game design route, in my opinion, was Steven admitting there being no true benefit to using the action reticle mode...(and the combat being more tab targeting oriented). Hopefully, my answer satisfies you ❤️ For more detail, please read Kaelin's post.
I can agree to make the snipe an action skill shot. Even having it zoom into either a directly over the shoulder close 3rd person or even 1st person POV while charging.
Mechanical proficiency, like all weapons. Player efficacy and ability, reliance on my ability to hit my shots. Precision, combat geometry, and timing are important factors.
When it comes to Ranger archetype fantasy, what are you wanting to see and not wanting to see?
I like very straight forward, not overly gaudy or flashy. I don't care for that Air Strike attack because its so over the top and doesn't fit a survivalist at all. Tracking, traps, marksmanship, evasive maneuvers, camouflage are all hallmark traits of a Ranger.
Are there types of basic range weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Conquerors Blade, New World, Darkfall, Darkfall Unholy wars. I like where the dev team is going with the snipe charged shot, but drive it home and make it a proper snipe.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the basic range weapon attacks and the Ranger archetype.
The combat influence from GW2 and ArcheAge is heavily noticeable in the preview, in a way that it does not seem like Ashes has any influence from any other titles in regard to combat or even its own creation in Apocalypse.
I did notice in the stream that arrows are not present on drawback, nor are weapons visually evident on the character (when not being used). I am hoping these would be added later in development to increase immersion. Showing all equipped gear on the character as an option would be amazing. I really like the immersion brought to games like the Witcher 3, Skyrim (modded) and Fable 3, that give the idea of an adventurer because you can see all your characters gear at all times.
Positives:
- Fact paced combat
- Both action and tab target options available
- Visuals of combat look great!
Negatives:
- Enemies could be more punishing (especially if a ranger gets charged by a minotaur, they should die or take at least 2/3 of a medium/light armour wearer's health. Notes - not heavy armour)
- No arrows are visible on drawback (this breaks immersion)
- Weapons not seen on body unless being wielded.
Questions:
- Will our main-hand, off-hand and ranged weapons be visible on our character? (eg Skyim SE mods "All Geared Up Derivitive") (I would love to be able to see all my gear on my character, to give a real sense of an adventurer).
- Will classes like the rogue, be able to weild shortbows and longbows like the ranger?
- ^Extension: and will rogues and warriors have access to shortbow and longbow skill trees or are they available to rangers?
- Will you be able to attack enemies from a high vantage point (the tower) that they may not be able to reach by foot, without them "evading" like in WOW and other MMORPGs?
Please keep up the amazing work!
Sincerely,
Len614
other option is to add a inherited RNG miss chance for tab target mode like other games like WoW but in action mode there no RNG miss chance on attacks.
Either way i feel it something that needs to be looked into when players get there hands in the game to see how it functions specifically in PvP
Edit: I kinda wish that players could body block shots mainly tanks to shield allies that are low but doesnt seem to be the case although maybe you can have block ability from tanks intercept projectile skills that pass through them so tanks could do this would be a nice addition i feel
mobs seem a little to weak atm, also mino charge doesnt seem to be very impactful here maybe it not woprking as intended currently but it didnt seem to do much i feel charge attacks should be more impactful like a stun/knock down or knockback to give if more impact feel. Would be cool if charge attacks did a knock back/down on targets with less than X armor (Based on chargers weight/str vs targets armor level) so heavy armor targets wont be affected to much by a charge maybe short stun however light/mid range targets might be get knocked back onto the ground.
- I do hope there'll be damaging action/aimed abilities (skillshots), other than just non-damaging and AoE ones. Switching camera modes every few seconds could be tedious though, assuming your screen isn't (always) centered on your main target when you're in the tab targeting camera mode. An idea for this is to also be able to fire the skillshots from the tab targeting camera mode in the form of a ground decal that moves with your cursor, similar to skillshots in League of Legends.
- I hope the difference between tab target combat and action combat will be balanced, this including ranged combat vs melee combat, but also the ranged basic attack tab target camera mode vs reticle camera mode. Normally this is done by giving the action combat a slight damage bonus.
- I also hope we're able to block/dodge shots even when they're locked on to with tab target.
- Miss chance (evasion & accuracy). There will be RNG involved regarding these stats, atleast for tab targeted combat. To not completely disregard these stats for action combat, this is an idea from @Noaani I agree with; the higher the discrepancy between one player or mob's accuracy stat and their target's evasion stat, the further away you need to dodge for it to miss, and/or the earlier you need to get your block up in order to successfully block it. This gives both players a reason to increase their stats (key in an MMO), but means the player with more dodge/block skill is in a position to not increase that stat as high, rely on their skill as a player a little more, and focus their gear selection in other areas.
Also, the birds not ending up moving when Steven seemed to build up to it
good sound effects, good visuals, no rooting in place, some even small skill to it, not just braindead holding one button
When it comes to Ranger archetype fantasy, what are you wanting to see and not wanting to see?
The popular opinion about ranger is that its boring broken class. Its because most popular rangers are full tab, so u just hold attack and u spam all ur abilties at the target for dps.. its get boring really fast, some even small work to it makes u invested and keeps u in game
Are there types of basic range weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
From all games i think skyrim, but from mmos? I think new world is the closest that i liked the most. I know that its too much action, but i think that supports my answer from pervious question. In new world u are invested cuz u need to aim everyshot at the target so overall combat does not feel stale and boring
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the basic range weapon attacks and the Ranger archetype?
Im excited to see what other abilties u have prepared cuz airstrike is very good. Im concerned about couple of things tho:
- snipe shot as tab target makes me scared what action abilities are u going to make
- long bow range does seem a little bit small so u wont be able to poke ppl from the walls of a castle or node
- i do hope that u will manage to balance damage of a short bow so long bow will be more dpm option to choose
- action combat mode is close to useless in comparasion to tab target
- all combat that we saw to this point is bascily gw2, im not sure if its good or bad tho
I love the enviroment with all its particles and animals, good job! Skill sounds and visual are good too except snipe, but about that in a moment. I rate ranger combat 7/10, cuz i hoped for more action approach and there are some flaws that i want to point out.
- Long bow should be bigger, now its almost same as short bow which is weird
- Whistling sound of shooting arrows sometimes gets too high pitch and becomes annoying after a while, string sound very good. I think skyrim had a good bow sounds so u can inspire, make sure to make a sound queue for crits tho.. but please, dont make it annoying
- I think that shooting and jumping makes it look weird, same with no movement speed punishment for streight up back pedaling while shooting
- I think that long bow should have more range so u can snipe ppl for afar, not sure if though base range or maybe weapon skill tree. You can always make that only in action when u blind fire projectiles can fly much furhter so u can snipe ppl.. im not saying apoc snipe.. but just further
- Talking about snipe, you charge this huge ass attack, and then u have visual and sound of normal attack.. put there some green juicy projectile and some epic sound effect, also i think snipe should have more range than normal attacks and should be action as its this very big snipe damage so it feels weird when its tab targeted
Other thing is that we can see player nametag above our character, remove that, its useless and it will help with immersion (obviusly i mean remove our nametag on our screen, keep nametags for other players)
I have read a variety of concerns on this forum post regarding tab targeting and people's major concerns are:
1. The class is completely tab target.
2. This implies that ranger will take little to no skill at PVP since they can tab target shoot you and run away.
3. There is no benefit to being in action mode.
For point 1, keep in mind that we've only seen 3!! skills used at this point, and already one of these skills (Airstrike) is NOT tab target. I am incredibly confident that there will be more skills introduced with interesting use cases and plenty of room for skill expression. The game is hybrid combat, and people who are acting like this showcase implies the game will be entirely tab-targeting are overreacting. I forgot where I saw someone say that likely 75% of the skills will be tab-target and 25% will be action combat, but it doesn't seem like they were lying about that. Some easy action skills to design off the top of my head are positioning-based traps that the ranger can put down, raining arrows on a location, and pulling out knives for melee combos.
For point 2, zoning an enemy outside of my range as an archer has NEVER been trivial in any PVP game I've played. Even if archers have good skills that can tab-target, keep in mind that EVERY class will have good skills that can tab-target. They have already shown that fighters have a tab-target knockdown that can immediately gapclose onto a ranged player. Classes will have shields, invisibility, cleanses, immunities, etc. that will reward you for timing them correctly against an opposing player, regardless of what class they are playing. As someone who has played a lot of BDO and Lost Ark PVP, I did not feel like the action combat enhanced the PVP in any meaningful way. You don't spam your ranged attacks and hit some and miss some because of your aim. Instead, you combo your aimable attacks with stuns, knockdowns, etc. so that it isn't possible to miss. Essentially, turning your snipes, etc. into tab-targeting anyways. You can still have a combo game, skill management, reacting to animations, and proper positioning and timing without action combat. There's plenty of room for skill expression.
Not to say that action combat is bad, because I also do like that Intrepid are adding some action-based skills. They add variety and flavor to combat by allowing you to do unexpected things due to their versatility. People can prefer action combat simply due to the feel and variety of it, but it's not the cornerstone of a competitive PVP environment.
For point 3, I would also disagree with this. I also played GW2 as a ranger, and the action camera in that game made my hits feel more alive without creating the whole host of problems that free aim would bring such as hit detection, tracking thousands of projectile entities during huge castle sieges, and dealing with max weapon ranges (do arrows continue flying forever, or do they just vanish after reaching your max range?). Max range especially is a big deal for PVP as range can't be so large that an archer can hit you from a full screen away, or you could never engage onto them. Archers could just sit on top of a building and fire cheap shots during a war. However, having your range be less than a full screen makes your arrows disappear incredibly often when you see an enemy and try to shoot them, which is super frustrating.
When there are 10 enemies on screen, it's easier to use the action camera to point to the one you want to hit instead of tabbing 6 times to do the same thing, and it's also much more intuitive when you find yourself in chaotic situations. The action camera will already find plenty of use even without mechanics forcing you to use it, like a flat DPS increase or the like. It's more intuitive and more immersive, and highly competitive players may want to sacrifice that for more consistency in tab-targeting, which isn't a bad thing. Unless there are abuse cases, which I have faith Intrepid will solve quickly, action camera is way more appealing and noob-friendly, and using tab-targeting in exchange only provides a couple of of advantages (shooting while looking at other places, AOE placement). People will naturally prefer one or the other, so what's the point making one obviously better than the other like a DPS increase would do? Might as well delete one of the two if you're going to push one style so heavily. They both have their pros and cons.
I always felt like AoC was the game that wanted to reward differences in playstyles above all else, and to me this just feels like an extension of that. People saying the game is doomed / it won't be fun without X change is the antithesis to that belief. No doubt you'll see successful players using tab-targeting as well as successful players using the action camera. You'll see rangers that successfully zone off an attacker forever, as well as ones that get stunned and chased down to death. Some classes having more tab skills, some having more action skills, all of them having cool and creative tools to use in combat. That's how you design a game properly. Intrepid already showed that they are very receptive to player feedback, so massive unbalances and game abuse will be squashed quickly.
If you agree with the core design pillars that Steven shared, then there should be a playstyle in this game that fits you. But that doesn't mean that every playstyle should fit you, or the game would become one homogenized mess. And as a natural outcome of that, there will be different playstyles that cause friction when they clash in the game world. That's the beauty of this game. There's too many people in this thread that don't play rangers that have had negative experiences with them in other games, and it's coloring their opinion here.
Also, I'm not a fan of the creaking sound when drawing the bow. Real bows don't creak. Moreover, many archer players might prefer a more subtle battlefield presence, and the creaking defies that. I would prefer a more understated wood-on-wood or wood-on-leather sound as the shaft slides across the hand of the archer, with no creaking.
Mobility and feel, you guys really nailed it with the sound effects and movement. I really hate in other games that when you shoot your bow you are basically immobile and it feels true to the fantasy of the archtype of a "ranger/archer"
10/10 for me here on movement and Tab/Action orientations!
When it comes to Ranger archetype fantasy, what are you wanting to see and not wanting to see?
Touched on this, but I don't want an archetype that is locked motionless to deal damage, and I hate when you feel "bulky and heavy" in this archetype.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the basic range weapon attacks and the Ranger archetype?
It doesn't seem like the action combat is true action combat, and i think this is fine I really like the soft lock system you have is great! I THINK that there should be SOME MERIT that's not bonus damage if you are using the action combat softlock vs true aiming. Maybe a distance increase on the aiming portion? I think that would be fair without being broken.
Overall feedback
I really loved it!!! RANGER IS MY MOST HYPED CLASS! I would be totally okay with what you have shown today! I like everyone else will say the same, A2 when? At least a spot test! Let us test the combat ourselves!
Edit: Perhaps a true "Skill shot" that utilizes full action combat that does more damage? Longer CD, higher risk, higher reward.
basic attack soft lock and the skills use both
soft lock for the target(base dmg) and then use hard lock to aim the weak spot for extra dmg for pve boss that can work to destroy armor or crippled for debuff
I also want to say that there is always going to be those who want action combat and those who want tab-target. You will not please everyone. I just ask that Intrepid Studios chooses the combat style that is best for this game knowing that there will be some that will inevitably end up disappointed.